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Dear Rafa,
I always find myself thinking about the past, and to be honest our past really sucks. Ever since I can remember I've had anxiety, this unyielding feeling that I've done something wrong. You felt this too, I know, which is why I'm writing about it. We were raised in a complex environment, and I think the memory loss that comes with everything blocked a lot from our childhood that we need to unblock. Victor, our dad, was adopted by a sweet couple in 1969 and he went to México, where he grew up poor and dreamed of success. From what I know, he got excellent grades, played in a rock band for a bit, went to the top college in Mexico for business and then got into Yale. From there he started working in finances, got a Job at Wall Street and moved his wife and son to the states, then I was born.
He worked our whole lives, and when he wasn't working he would manipulate us. I hope you know some of the anxiety comes from him. But I also hope that you know that nothing he did in the past should affect us today. As people we have to learn to let go. My therapist says he probably has an undiagnosed narcissistic personality disorder, isn't that ironic? I've been speaking with our grandma so I'm hoping to get some more information about him, about how he used to be.
Lucy, our mom, went to an all girls school in Mexico, and she studied education. I wish I knew more but even I can't remember if she did anything else besides the school. And in addition to that, Green Mountain is now a private school in Mexico where all kids feel "welcome", kids like you and me. It's actually grown a lot since you were last there, and she really did make an impact, you should see it. Lucy gave up her dreams and opened a school so you could have a future. And she did it all while she was sick too. She got cancer when I was 3 and you were 5. For 7 years they took out 7 tumors, put her through chemotherapy, trial recovery programs, you name it. And then she died.
Why am I bringing this up? You already know all of this, I hope, but there's so many gaps, and knowledge is power Rafa. There is so much we don't know about our parents that are still affecting us today. That's why I'm writing this, okay? I know someday you'll see this somewhere and maybe you'll reach out.
I think I'm gonna write a book, it's the only way I'll get all my thoughts out of my head.
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I used to watch TV a lot when I was younger. Since I was 6, I'd get home from school, put my life on pause and then press play. I refer to it as the automatic season. Normally, the show would have the narrator describing their storyline; so growing up I started to look for meanings. I needed explanations: a description of everything that was going on. I'm sure there are more reasons for that but im
not really a therapist or anything. Of course, at the time, I had no consciousness of what that automatic season did to me or why it even happened. But here is where it starts:
The first memory I actually remember is of me and my family at Six Flags in Texas when I was 8. It was summer, but not humid, so it was a perfect day in mi child-like mind. My brother and I were cutting in line to go to the front of this water ride, we had to get ahead you know? We rode that ride 3 times in 15 minutes, and the line was an hour long. We would walk past the people and lie so that we'd get on quick. We would say "we're lost" and that we were trying to find our parents, then once we got to the front we'd get on with a random family that would look after us. Im surprised no one recognized us the third time around, but now that I think about it they probably did since we were soaking wet the second and third times. After we got tired of the ride we argued about something and we ended up wrestling and getting in trouble. Things with Rafa always ended up messy.
I don't see Rafa anymore; he's been missing for a month but he is the reason why I'm writing this. We have to understand, or at least I believe we do. There's a lot of things I don't remember from my childhood either. After mom died I really fell into my automatic season. I stopped feeling, or at I tried to. I was depressed for 5 years after she died and I have almost no recollection of most of what happened during those years, I only remember the bad.
Rafa was born with, or developed frontal lobe syndrome when he was young. His condition puts him in the autism spectrum. He's always been highly functional and his disability doesn't impair him from everything, but it was rough growing up. That is why for the first 19 years of his life he was misdiagnosed as having Aspergers. His whole life he knew something was wrong with him, but I'm convinced that he unconsciously knew it wasn't Aspergers. See, I believe that Rafa unconsciously thought he was normal but he was weird so that's why they diagnosed him with Aspergers. I think he has a lot of misplaced guilt from that. He's now 21, he still struggles with anxiety, depression and everything else. A year ago he ran away from home and after a while he became homeless. He would've stayed with me but I wasn't in a position to offer anywhere to stay. I've always felt like I had to protect Rafa, he used to hate me cause I acted like his mother and would always tell him what to do. We were pretty annoying as kids, loud and chaotic, but I figured that was the neglect.
Victor has done many things in his life, good and bad. And though I may never truly know his intentions for everything he did, the anxious part of me needs to understand why.
Why he acted like he loved us but then acted like like we were holding him back. If I were to go by my therapist, the narcissist only thinks of themselves, and what others can do for them. Because of this he obsessed over us from a distance: for example; because of anxiety I started gaining weight when I was in 3rd grade, so I was 8, and when I got chunky, my dad obsessed over me losing weight, he would neglect me till I was perfect and then he would introduce me to his friends and take me to concerts when I was skinny.
I think my mom getting cancer motivated him. That sounds wrong and maybe even apathetic but sometimes thats how it is for us. He needed to be the man of the house, the provider, so he started working 24/7. Eventually he opened his own business and started making even more money.
When Lucy found out she had cancer the first thing she did was call him. He packed our bags and took us all to Disney. He didn't have as much money as he has now, and we still lived in Mexico; so I have to wonder when the line is drawn. Is he really a bad person? Could he really have been that bad unconsciously?
Part of me that wants to believe that my dad is this way only in my mind: that the anxiety I have created this monster I keep hearing about.
Now, this next information comes from what other people have told me the past few months. Old family members from Lucy's side that I haven't spoken to in years, friends, maids, etc. I have heard three times from three different people that my dad cheated on her for a while the last years of her life. I don't know if it was with Wendy (you'll find out more about her later) or someone else. I also discovered that she knew he was having the affair. If I remember correctly, right before she died they were arguing and I told her something and he yelled at me and asked me if I wanted them to get a divorce. Why did he go there? Why were they arguing in the first place? Did my dad get more selfish along the years? These are all things that I will figure out.
I found out that he cheated on Lucy when I reconnected with a family friend, and it felt like a car going through a tinted window. It was like I was finally able to see who he had been the whole time. He had painted us a portrait of who he was, and manipulated us into believing it, into making us think we were the unstable ones. I felt sorry for him for the second time in my life.
